India Seddon-Callaghan's teenage journey leads to truthful debut

There's been the trials and tribulations of living in her first share house, her spiritual discovery of Buddhism, broken hearts and everything in between. All those experiences have been channelled into India and The Journey To The East's debut EP The Sun, The Moon, The Truth, out on Monday.

The Newcastle folk-rock band earned admirers with their single Abundantina last year, and their eclectic five-track recording showcases the four-piece's broad style from indie-pop, Americana to '90s-style folk-rock.

"On the EP we wanted to have a mixture of the different styles we do, the slower ones and the more upbeat punk ones," Seddon-Callaghan said.

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Two songs were recorded at Newcastle TAFE, where Seddon-Callaghan studied sound production, while the rest were tracked in a bedroom studio and then mixed by Newcastle singer-songwriter Byren Sawell.

"It was definitely a process and it took me a while to get it to sound how I wanted it to sound," she said. "But I'm glad I actually did it myself as it was a great experience."

Seddon-Callaghan, 19, wrote the melancholy ballad I've Been Wondering when she was 15, while the energetic Teenage Crime was a more recent effort.

"Teenage Crime was about when I was in my first share house and it was an intense experience," she said.

"It was fun, with lots of partying and intense experiences, but it's about my struggle of being a very sensitive person, so I didn't really do well in that environment."

India and The Journey To The East launch The Sun, The Moon, The Truth at Softy's Clubhouse on June 15.

NEWCASTLE will welcome a new player onto the music scene on Saturday when The Badger's Lair opens with hip-hop act Bomb Threat.

Newcastle Leagues Club in National Park Street is home to The Badger's Lair, which was known as the metal-focused The Vault until last June. The club was also previously called The Bandroom where it hosted acts such as You Am I and Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Novocastrian Chris Barnett - a former senior audio engineer at the Enmore, Metro and Factory theatres in Sydney - is behind The Badger's Lair and he plans to run fortnightly mixed-genre band nights called Noisy Neighbours. The first edition is scheduled for June 21 with six bands including Newcastle hip-hop act The Fighting Fish and indie rockers Blue Tide and Sydney grunge band Spruced Moose.

"I am building a huge database of up and coming bands all the way along the east coast, providing them with a great concert venue, not a pub, to play some awesome shows and present their art to a bigger, broader audience," Barnett said.

It's turns out June really is the month for opening new music venues in Newcastle. Following on from the launch of The Family Hotel's Saturday Knights and The Badger's Lair this weekend, Mayfield Bowling Club is also taking live music more seriously.

While the Ingall Street venue does host live music, on June 29 it will launch a five-hour five-band free punk showcase. The line-up includes Newcastle's Bitchcraft and The Not Nots, plus Wollongong's Leftards and The Space Boozzies from Woy Woy.

The Not Nots will also launch their latest single What You Don't Know at the show. The indie-punk band, fronted by Anthony Dean, recently had their track Take included on new Wollongong punk label Wreckless Records' compilation album Short Fuse Vol 1.

ONLY the true believers would have expected Regurgitator to survive 25 years when the Brisbane art-rockers burst onto the scene with songs like I Sucked a Lot of Cock to Get Where I Am.

To celebrate, The Gurge are doing a lap of Australia with Japanese pop-punk band Shonen Knife and Melbourne's The Fauves. Regurgitator land at the Cambridge Hotel on November 7.